Senior foreign policy officials: “chain is tightening quickly” on White House staffers who acted without consulting them

President Trump is going to run into real trouble if he lets his White House staff pull end runs on the likes of General Mattis . . .

Over the weekend, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were given extraordinary access to President Trump and his foreign policy team. On today’s Morning Joe, they gave their takeaways from their interview of the president and a number of his senior advisors.

Scarborough painted a picture of White House staffers in a battle with the senior foreign policy team. Scarborough singled out Stephen Miller, saying “you’ve got a very young person in the White House on a power trip thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your cabinet agencies to go to hell.”

Scarborough reported that the senior officials are poised to strike back. The senior policy team “said, basically, we hope the young staff members at the White House enjoyed their time trying to make policy on their own without talking to us, because that will never happen again. The exact quote is the chain is tightening quickly.”

Joe and Mika also met with Dem senators and were struck by their muted response to the immigration ban: “despite what you see on TV, they are still jarred by the election result and I expected them to be far angrier in person. I expected them to be saying we are going to get Trump on — no. They said . . . we have no doubt that the majority of America probably supports this and we have to figure out how to get our message to America to explain why these things that help get Donald Trump elected were wrong. Their reaction was far different than I expected.”

Note: in particular, Scarborough indicated that Miller was behind the issuance of an executive memo issued on Saturday that removed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence as permanent members at National Security Council meetings and making Steve Bannon a permanent member. Scarborough said he spent several hours on Sunday nailing down the fact that such policy had been reversed, and that in fact the Joint Chiefs Chairman and DNI are by statute permanent NSC members.

Note segundo: Scarborough reported that President Trump did not express or suggest that he felt the rollout of the immigration ban had gotten off to a bad start. But, Scarborough reported, “those around” the president think it got off “very badly” because of bad communications, a failure to explain what it was and wasn’t, and above all the failure to have vetted it with the various agencies. So again, the finger was being pointed back at White House staff.

Scarborough also suggested that if in the future Mattis, Kelly and Tillerson were left out of the loop, “the president would have serious problems with his foreign policy team.”

JOE SCARBOROUGH: We met with the president yesterday, but the night before met with members of Barack Obama’s foreign policy team, Democratic senators who — I’m really surprised by Democratic senators’ reaction to this, as well as speaking to members of the president’s foreign policy team that has gained, I think, almost universal acclaim. And I think the biggest takeaway this weekend from all of the discussions had to do from that foreign policy team who said, basically, we hope the staff, the young staff members at the White House enjoyed their time trying to make policy on their own without talking to us, because that will never happen again. The chain, the exact quote is the chain is tightening quickly.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: And a few takeaways from the meeting with the president?

JOE: Well, I think the biggest takeaway and one that took me a while to nail down was the fact that the White House claimed even yesterday afternoon, and David, this is something that sent shock waves through the foreign-policy community, there had been the news breaking that the Director of National Intelligence and also the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were taken off the permanent NSC committee. Shocking ommission

The White House claimed — not the president, but his staff, claimed that that wasn’t the case. If you looked at the language, those were the only two who were statutorily required to be on there. So they said, no, no, no. We are adding Bannon but those two are staying on there. I will say it took me four hours to nail that down. I spent the next four hours on the phone saying I want this in writing. Because I’m not seeing it anywhere. And four or five hours later, they confirmed yes, they are both on the permanent committee, yes it’s directed statutorily.

Then that of course begged the next question: well then, why did you put out that paper? Which is also—why did Stephen Miller fight so hard to put out this order on Friday without talking to any of the other agencies? And Bob Costa will, I’m sure all of you will report that this, that it was Stephen Miller sitting in the White House saying we’re not going to go to the other agencies. We’re not going to talk to the lawyers. We’re going to do this all alone. And I’ll just say it right here and reporting will bear this out, you’ve got a very young person in the White House on a power trip, thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your cabinet agencies to go to hell. And Washington’s in an uproar this morning. Forget about what is happening in the street because Stephen Miller decided he was going to do this without going through the regular interagency process.

DAVID IGNATIUS: You had a chance to talk to the president. Did you have any sense that he felt that he had made a mistake? This immigration order Friday night has drawn a level of protest, including legal rulings staying some of the effects, that’s unusual for our country. Does the president have any sense that maybe I went off too quickly on this and maybe there’s something I didn’t see here?

JOE: The president did not say that. And he didn’t suggest that. But those around him, you can tell, there had been discussions and that those around him, I think, believe that this got off very badly for several reasons. First of all, they didn’t explain it to the media, they didn’t communicate it properly. They didn’t explain what it was and what it wasn’t. And then, of course, the much, much larger problem was there was no vetting with the agencies. The president’s feeling was this is what I promised people to do. In fact, we took the seven countries from Barack Obama’s list from 2015 of the seven countries that caused the biggest problem. So we lifted the language from there. So their feeling was, it wasn’t a Muslim ban. We used Obama’s seven countries in 2015 and then they added three more in 2016. And, of course, they were talking about their 45 Muslim-majority countries that weren’t on this list. That’s the sort of thing that you don’t talk about on Sunday. That is the sort of thing you talk about last week while you’re building up to this.

IGNATIUS: So for the key senior people, we think of General Mattis, at Defense, we think of General Kelly at Homeland Security, we think of Rex Tillerson presumably coming to State. Was this a lesson for them they need to push back harder earlier to prevent political types at the White House from making mistakes that hurt the president, hurt the country?

JOE: I can’t speak for them this morning, but that is certainly from the several that I spoke with, yes. This would not happen again and if this did happen again, the president would have serious problems with his foreign policy team.

. . .

I was struck by the Democratic senators’ response. They are still, despite what you see on TV, they are still jarred by the election result and I expected them to be far angrier in person. I expected them to be saying we’re going to get Trump on the — no. They said at our retreat in West Virginia and we talked to Trump supporters, we have no doubt that the majority of America probably supports this and we have to figure out how to get our message to America to explain why these things that helped get Donald Trump elected were wrong. Their reaction far different than I expected.

Comments

YEAH, IN PARTICULAR THE GREEN CARD THING WAS A MAJOR UNFORCED ERROR: Jonathan Adler: President Trump may hire “only the best people” but he did not rely upon them to draft and implement his latest Executive Order.

“Whatever one thinks of the underlying policy, the degree of administrative incompetence in its execution is jaw-dropping. . . .

Under normal circumstances, I believe that the policy embodied in the Trump EO is lawful under existing precedent and would survive judicial review. That is, I believe the executive branch may decide to identify specific countries from which immigrants and others seeking entry into the country must receive “extreme vetting” and that the President may order a suspension of refugees from particular places (as Obama did with Iraq in 2011). Despite some of the President’s comments during the campaign about wanting a “Muslim ban,” this EO does not come anywhere close to effectuating such a ban, as it largely focuses on countries that were previously identified as sources of potential terror threats.

I stress “under normal circumstances” because these are not normal circumstances. The cavalier and reckless manner in which this specific EO was developed and implemented will likely give judges pause — and with good reason. Courts typically give a degree of deference to executive branch actions under the assumption that polices are implemented after serious consideration of relevant legal and policy questions. Indeed, the more serious the government interest allegedly being served, the more serious one expects the government’s internal review to be (unless, of course, there are exigent circumstances necessitating immediate action, but that was not the case here).”

Yes, this is Trump’s first screw-up (as opposed to policy that people don’t like). He needs to be sure there aren’t more.

Plus: “Many of the things the Trump Administration wishes to do to reverse Obama Administration policies, particularly those embodied in duly promulgated regulations, will require careful and patient lawyering. The failure to properly vet and flyspeck administrative actions will leave them vulnerable to legal challenge.”

One of the reasons the Reagan Revolution bogged down in court on many fronts was precisely this sort of failure. Don’t do it again.
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Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds
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As I pointed out last week, you can do a right thing the wrong way, and it just becomes a mistake. Or worse…

Glen Renyolds?…who advocated the use of nuclear weapon on North Korea and is pro abortion.

I am not surprised by the narrow minded view of the complex power play taking place. I suspect that the EO was vetted and very strategic.

1. It brings out Obama’s policies to light – how can you attack and also defend Obama?
2. It attacks key Democrats to get defensive (crying Chuck)
3. It make the left base seem like a bunch of crazies thus losing even more power.

IF he can take out Soro and the Koch Brothers, we have hope. It is a matter of time before the Democrats are exposed. A few good successes in the intercity will change the tide.

The rules have changed and those that supported Trump wanted action and they are getting it. Just remember what George Washington said:

George Washington wrote in 1799: “…make them believe, that offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only (in some cases) means of defence”.

Nobody will believe anything you have to say, or the links you push. All trump haters all the time. In the rare case when you will be correct, no one will pay any attention, crying wolf has that effect.

For readers who question the value of monitoring and reporting on Morning Joe, today’s item reflects original reporting from within the Trump admin on the turf war between White House staff and senior cabinet officials, as well as on an interview Joe and Mika had with President Trump himself.

What MSNBC is taking glee in appears to be at the “most”
just normal “organizational behavior.”

Trump’s got this – it is what he’s done all his life after all – manage hundreds and thousands in large organizations.

But is MSNBC “telling tales out of school?” Is daylight finally breaking through to a lot of the Dems?
RE: “Joe and Mika also met with Dem senators and were struck by their muted response to the immigration ban: “despite what you see on TV, they are still jarred by the election result and I expected them to be far angrier in person. I expected them to be saying we are going to get Trump on — no. They said . . . we have no doubt that the majority of America probably supports this and we have to figure out how to get our message to America to explain why these things that help get Donald Trump elected were wrong. Their reaction was far different than I expected.”

” we have no doubt that the majority of America probably supports this and we have to figure out how to get our message to America to explain why these things that help get Donald Trump elected were wrong”

I think they are starting to realize, that their usual responses are so predictable, that they are cautious to being set up by Trump (again). They just don’t know how to respond differently.

“Scarborough singled out Stephen Miller, saying “you’ve got a very young person in the White House on a power trip thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your cabinet agencies to go to hell.”

“Unbelievable. The baseless attack against Donald Trump continues unabated. The latest target? His Presidential Memorandum governing how the National Security Council will be organized. Hell, the frigging Wall Street Journal gets it wrong. Here is their headline:

Donald Trump Shuffles National Security Council

Executive measure adds Steve Bannon while removing Director of National Intelligence, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Only one little problem. That’s not what the damn Memorandum states, and I quote:

The NSC and HSC shall have as their regular attendees (both statutory and non-statutory) the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the National Security Advisor, the Homeland Security Advisor, and the Representative of the United States to the United Nations. When international economic issues are on the agenda of the NSC, the NSC’s regular attendees will include the Secretary of Commerce, the United States Trade Representative, and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. The Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as statutory advisers to the NSC, shall also attend NSC meetings.

It does not say some. It does not proscribe the DNI and Chairman of the JCS from attending. Just the opposite. It reaffirms that they are “statutory advisers” and shall attend NSC meetings.
How can the press be so damn careless? This is absurd.

Sauron (Soros) deployed the Orcs (protestors from his multitude of “non-profits”) to the airports- it was planned, just awaiting activation. Then Schumer channeled Theodan, while Elizabeth Warren took up the role of Gríma Wormtongue.

Anyone who doesn’t see the plan and its rollout is willfully ignorant.

Given the small delay from the order issuance to the start of the protests at JFK and other airports does anyone think they were not prepared well in advance and only needed the call to arms to show up?

Wasn’t the point of Trump being elected one that the people were no longer interested in things being done the DC Way… or the Chicago Way? It doesn’t take much scrutiny of Trump’s inner circle and cabinet picks to recognize a rather authoritarian, top-down management style being implemented. Kissing the usual rings and asses is simply not high on the list of mission objectives. The usual media “go to” folks have been effectively frozen from insight and/or influence and risk looking foolish offering anything in interviews. Seems to be an effective way of at least temporarily muting the inhabitants of the swamp.

Since the rules of the game are currently being re-written, I’m not so sure an unforced error under the old rules is an unforced error under the new rules. My crystal ball broke with Trump’s arrival on the scene, so I’m just an observer like everybody else. I’m not really sure what I’m watching.

“Scarborough singled out Stephen Miller, saying “you’ve got a very young person in the White House on a power trip thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your cabinet agencies to go to hell.”

I certainly wouldn’t consider Gen. Mattis a swamp dweller, but Scarborough is making an assumption that Mattis, Kelly, and Tillerson were not consulted and might already be at odds with current direction coming from the White House. Based upon what? Scarborough’s idea of what an “orderly transition” should look like? Knowing what we know about Trump, does anybody think that his cabinet members are going to be creating policy independent of or contradictory to the White House? Not likely.

I suspect that for the near future virtually all public messaging will originate in the White House, Trump will absorb the abuse, and his cabinet members will quietly go about implementing this new definition of “the people’s business”. I don’t look for a Trump Administration to operate much like any of it’s predecessors, not on substance and most certainly not on style. We’re on some pretty new ground here. Judging the present by the past might not prove all that accurate.

You are probably wrong on the polls. If they say 57% pro Trump it’s probably 65% pro Trump. The polls are always worded in the worst possible way for him and the sample leans heavily towards democrats. The average American worries about his kids going to the mall and being attacked by a crazed Islamic nut. Schumer’ crying was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Doesn’t the left have enough professional actors?

… you’ve got a very young person in the White House on a power trip, thinking that you can just write executive orders … And Washington’s in an uproar this morning. Forget about what is happening in the street because Stephen Miller decided he was going to do this …

In other words … another tactical success for Team Trump.

It’s right in front of their noses … and they still don’t realize what’s going on.

Trump isn’t the only one tossing chopped fish and watching the trained seals dance. He’s delegated some of that. Good. A good manager should’t be wasting time on the easy stuff; delegate it to some kid.

Watching Trump at work is like seeing a guy play a Paganini caprice. One may, or may not, care much for the music, but one can still appreciate and admire the skill of the man who can master the moves, including the tricks invisible to casual observers.

It’s becoming clearer, day by day, that our Press is not only perverse and thoroughly corrupt, but is also unbelievably stupid. Charley-Brown-and-the-football-level stupid. And I don’t anticipate any major change in the near future. They’re too stupid to realize just how stupid they really are.